About Me

AddFreeStats

Wednesday, 2 October 2013

The United States Secret Service--the law enforcement agency responsible for protecting the president and the White House--had a critical role to play in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Various accounts, however, reveal that it was inexplicably slow to react to the crisis that day. Secret Service agents only appear to have acted with the kind of urgency we might reasonably expect more than 45 minutes after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center and more than 30 minutes after the second plane crashed.

The Secret Service's slow response meant some high-level individuals the agency was responsible for protecting were allowed to remain at unsafe locations throughout much of the duration of the attacks, and so could have been killed or seriously injured if their locations had been targeted.

The Secret Service was also alarmingly slow to protect the White House--a building considered a likely target for terrorists--which meant the people there, including some key government officials, were left in danger throughout the attacks. It only ordered the evacuation of the White House about an hour after the attacks began.

In this article, as well as examining the Secret Service's apparent failure to adequately protect the White House on September 11, we will look at the experiences of three individuals--Vice President Dick Cheney, his wife, Lynne Cheney, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice--and consider how the Secret Service appears to have failed to sufficiently protect them.

SECRET SERVICE COULD DETECT AND RESPOND TO TERRORIST ATTACKSThe Secret Service protects America's "most visible targets," which include the president, the vice president, and their families; the White House complex; the vice president's residence; and other buildings in Washington, DC. [1] It had an important role in responding to terrorism and was prepared to deal with terrorist attacks. A report by the Office of Management and Budget published in July 2001 noted that it was "responsible for protection of high visibility officials and facilities that terrorists might target." [2]

Paul O'Neill, the Treasury secretary in 2001, said four months before 9/11 that in response to heightened concerns about terrorism, the Secret Service was carrying out "security operations that deter, minimize, and respond to these threats." He added that it had counter-assault teams, a counter-surveillance unit, and counter-sniper assets that could "detect and prevent, and if necessary respond to, any and all terrorist attacks on the president or vice president." [3]

Furthermore, the Secret Service was uniquely able to defend the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (the building next to the White House where most of the president's staff works)--two buildings that should have been considered potential targets in the 9/11 attacks--since both buildings were protected by its uniformed division. [4] Additionally, the Secret Service's emergency response team--a specialized unit within the uniformed division--comprised the "sharpshooters assigned to respond to any terrorist strike," according to U.S. News & World Report. [5]

In light of the agency's specific responsibilities, particularly those relating to dealing with terrorism, the Secret Service's performance on September 11 appears to have been particularly poor.

THE SECRET SERVICE ONLY RESPONDED TO THE ATTACKS AFTER THE SECOND CRASHDespite the heightened concern about terrorism around that time, Secret Service agents have indicated that they thought the first plane crash at the WTC was an accident, and they only realized a terrorist attack was underway and started taking action when they learned of the second crash.

Paul Nenninger, a special agent, was at Secret Service headquarters in Washington on the morning of September 11 for a meeting. He recalled that one of the last people to arrive for the meeting "announced that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center." But, according to Nenninger, it was only after they learned that another plane had hit the WTC that the agents there for the meeting realized that "one plane could be an accident, [but] two was an attack." The agents then "disbanded and went to various support roles defined by the day's events." [6]

Brian Stafford, the director of the Secret Service in 2001, was also at the Secret Service headquarters when the attacks began. He recalled that after he learned about the first crash, he "thought and hoped that it was an accident." But, he said, "When the second one hit, we knew that it wasn't." [7]

After the second crash, according to Assistant Director Danny Spriggs, Stafford activated the Director's Crisis Center. [8] The Director's Crisis Center, located on the ninth floor of the headquarters building, was used to direct operations in emergencies. [9] Little has been revealed about what was done there to respond to the 9/11 attacks, however. Spriggs, who arrived at the Director's Crisis Center at around 9:35 a.m., recalled that his "area of concern" while he was there was "the location of our protective details and the safety of our protectees." [10]

SENIOR AGENTS MET TO DISCUSS 'SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS AT THE WHITE HOUSE'A Secret Service official whose response to the 9/11 attacks deserves particular attention is Carl Truscott. As the special agent in charge of the presidential protective division, Truscott was responsible for the overall security of the president, the president's family, and the White House. [11] He was in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building when the attacks began.

Truscott has recalled that he started taking action after he "observed the CNN broadcast of the aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center." (It is unclear if he was referring to the first crash, which occurred at 8:46 a.m. but was first reported on CNN at 8:48 a.m., or the second crash, which was broadcast live at 9:03 a.m.) Truscott's first response appears to have been to contact three other senior Secret Service agents--two of them with the presidential protective division and one with the technical security division--and ask them to come to his office for a meeting.

The meeting was intended to discuss the critical subject of "security enhancements at the White House," according to Truscott. After it commenced, Truscott and the three other agents addressed a number of issues, including placing counter-sniper support on the White House, placing counter-surveillance units near the White House, increasing the number of emergency response teams, and opening the Emergency Operations Center. The meeting, however, began at "approximately 9:18 a.m.," according to Truscott--more than 30 minutes after the first attack on the WTC and 15 minutes after the second. [12]

SECURITY ENHANCEMENTS AT THE WHITE HOUSE WERE ONLY 'PRECAUTIONARY STEPS'Although the Secret Service was responsible for protecting the White House, it appears to have done little to defend the place for a significant time after the attacks began. Certainly, its initial actions seem much less than what we might reasonably expect, considering the unprecedented emergency that was taking place.

Although the Secret Service implemented "security enhancements" around the White House complex, since Carl Truscott's meeting to discuss these measures began at around 9:18 a.m., the security enhancements would presumably have only been initiated some time after 9:18 a.m., well after the attacks began. [13]

As the nation's capital, Washington should have been considered a likely target for any subsequent attacks after the WTC towers had been hit. An FBI spokesman in fact said, in 1999, that Washington was a "target-rich environment" for terrorists, because of all the embassies, monuments, and federal agencies there. [14] And yet the security enhancements around the White House were only "precautionary steps taken because of the strikes in New York," and not due to concerns about a possible attack in Washington, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [15]

Additionally, some of the security enhancements appear to have been implemented half-heartedly, as if those who ordered them were unaware of the seriousness of the situation. Uniformed division officers who established a perimeter around the White House complex were ordered to keep their submachine guns out of sight, so they would not look too "militaristic." The officers were furious about this. One of them complained, "All we were left with were our pistols." And Secret Service executives only implemented the standard "emergency call-up" that would put all personnel on active duty after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. [16]

THE SECRET SERVICE ONLY EVACUATED THE WHITE HOUSE AFTER THE PENTAGON ATTACKSignificantly, the Secret Service only ordered the evacuations of the White House and the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building at around 9:45 a.m., seven or eight minutes after the Pentagon--which is only a couple of miles away from them--was attacked. [17]

The evacuations were ordered after Carl Truscott received a call from Danny Spriggs, who was at the Director's Crisis Center, in which Spriggs said that "the intelligence division duty desk was reporting Federal Aviation Administration information that a suspicious aircraft was coming toward Washington." [18] (Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers informed the Secret Service that an unidentified aircraft was heading toward the White House at around 9:33 a.m. [19]) Then, while he was still on the phone with Spriggs, Truscott received a call from a "White House security representative" and, based on what Spriggs had said to him, he told the security representative to evacuate the White House. [20]

What is worth noting, as CNN White House correspondent John King observed at the time, is that people started evacuating the White House in a slow, orderly fashion--and presumably of their own accord--about 25 minutes before the Secret Service ordered people to leave there. [21] So while some staffers apparently realized they would be better off away from the White House by around 9:20 a.m., it took the agency responsible for protecting the White House another 25 minutes before it came to the same conclusion and ordered an evacuation.

Consequently, by the time agents started telling people to get away from the White House, 12 minutes had passed since the Secret Service was alerted to the suspicious aircraft flying toward the presidential mansion. Had that aircraft crashed into the White House, the Secret Service's evacuation order would have come many minutes too late to have helped save the lives of people there.

VICE PRESIDENT'S WIFE STAYED AT A HAIR SALON DURING THE ATTACKSThe slowness of the Secret Service's response to the 9/11 attacks was evident in the way agents performed in moving people they were meant to protect to safe locations, where those people were less likely to be victims of any additional attacks. The experiences of Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice illustrate this. All three individuals were at or near the White House when the attacks began.

Lynne Cheney, as the wife of the vice president, was protected by the Secret Service. [22] She was at the Nantucket Hair Salon in Washington, just a block away from the White House, at the time the planes crashed into the WTC. [23] Special Agent Michael Seremetis, who was with her, has recalled that a television was on in the hair salon, showing coverage of the attacks in New York. Seremetis, or possibly another Secret Service agent with him, went and told Cheney about the crashes as they were being reported on TV. [24]

Cheney has claimed that, when she was told of them, she did not initially realize the crashes were terrorist attacks. "I was so naive," she recalled. "At the first one I thought, 'Gee, that's odd.' And then the second one--now this is really naive--I thought, 'That's really odd.'" She said it was only after "a few minutes" that "it just set in that this can't happen." [25] Even if this is true, however, Cheney's Secret Service agents should surely have realized a terrorist attack was underway when the second plane hit the WTC, if not before then.

In a "state of emergency"--like the situation on September 11--"the Secret Service's plan is to get every protectee to a secure site," according to a National Geographic Channel documentary about the Secret Service. [26] And yet the agents did not evacuate Cheney from the hair salon and head toward a secure location until at least 30 minutes after the second attack. [27]

LYNNE CHENEY WAS EVACUATED AFTER AGENTS LEARNED OF AN AIRCRAFT FLYING TOWARD THE WHITE HOUSELynne Cheney's Secret Service agents only took action after they heard from the Joint Operations Center that an aircraft was flying toward the White House. This would presumably have been shortly after 9:33 a.m., when the Secret Service was alerted to this suspicious aircraft. [28]

Cheney's explanation for her agents' slow response to the attacks was that the crisis was not initially "a Washington event." [29] But while the first attacks took place in New York, Cheney's agents should surely have considered the possibility of further attacks, and that these might have occurred in Washington. Casey McGee, a Secret Service special agent, specifically stated, "Part of our training [in the Secret Service] was to expect a diversion, expect multiple attacks." [30]

Cheney also explained the initial inaction of her agents by saying they "had no knowledge of a plane headed toward Washington." [31] But what if a plane had been heading toward Washington without their knowledge? Or what if terrorists attacked the capital from the ground, perhaps by setting off a bomb? Cheney's agents should surely have contemplated possibilities such as these and acted accordingly.

After evacuating her from the hair salon, the Secret Service agents initially drove Cheney toward the vice president's residence in northwest Washington. But in a phone call with a colleague, they learned that a plane had hit the Pentagon and were instructed, therefore, to take her to the White House, where she could join her husband. [32]

Cheney has recalled that the Secret Service "decided that maybe it would be safer for me to be underneath the White House. The immediate threat was gone, so they took me there." [33] The Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), where the agents were taking her, was certainly safer than the Nantucket Hair Salon: the bunker below the White House was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. [34]

Lynne Cheney arrived at the White House at 9:52 a.m., according to a Secret Service timeline, and the 9/11 Commission Report stated that she finally entered the safety of the PEOC at around 9:58 a.m.--more than 1 hour and 10 minutes after the first plane hit the WTC. [35]

THE EVACUATION OF VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEYDick Cheney, as the vice president on September 11, was one of America's "most visible targets" and was guarded by his own detail of Secret Service agents. The actions of those agents were crucial and so an analysis of what they did is important. This analysis, however, is complicated by conflicting evidence about when they evacuated Cheney from his office in the West Wing of the White House and took him to the PEOC.

Norman Mineta, the secretary of transportation in September 2001, has indicated that Cheney may have been evacuated some time before around 9:20 a.m. Mineta said that when he arrived at the PEOC on September 11, Cheney was already there. [36] Mineta said, on one occasion, that he arrived at the PEOC at 9:20 a.m.; on another occasion, he said he arrived there at 9:27 a.m. [37] But other accounts, including the 9/11 Commission Report, have stated that Secret Service agents only evacuated Cheney from his office and headed toward the PEOC at around 9:35 a.m., after they were alerted to the suspicious plane flying toward the White House. [38]

While further investigation is necessary to determine if Cheney was evacuated at the earlier time implied by Mineta or the later time stated in other accounts, we should certainly examine the accounts that describe Cheney being evacuated at around 9:35 a.m., because if they are correct it would mean the Secret Service failed to take action to protect the vice president for more than 30 minutes after the second plane hit the WTC and it became clear the U.S. was under attack.

LEAD AGENT LEARNED OF ATTACKS FROM TELEVISIONDick Cheney's Secret Service agents reportedly learned of the crisis on September 11 when Special Agent James Scott, the shift leader, saw the coverage of the first crash at the WTC on television and then alerted the "working shift"--the "body men" who remain in close proximity to a protectee--to what had happened, presumably in a phone call or over his radio. [39] Although Scott has not stated his location at that time, he was presumably at the Joint Operations Center at the White House, where the White House complex is monitored and the location of every "protected person," including the vice president, is constantly tracked. [40] Scott, however, did not instruct his colleagues to evacuate Cheney from his office.

Around the same time, John McConnell, Cheney's chief speechwriter, was waiting outside the vice president's office and chatting with the Secret Service agent posted there. After the two men learned of the first crash at the WTC, but before the second crash occurred, the agent was called by the Secret Service's intelligence division. He was told that the WTC had been hit, specifically, by a "passenger jet," according to McConnell. After the agent passed on this detail to him, McConnell experienced a "sick feeling," because, he commented, "a passenger aircraft is not going to crash into the World Trade Center." [41] If McConnell's account is correct, the Secret Service agent outside Cheney's office should have been similarly concerned about what had caused the plane to crash. But still no attempt was made to evacuate the vice president.

LEAD AGENT BECAME CERTAIN THAT CRASHES WERE TERRORIST ATTACKSAfter Scott learned of the second crash at the WTC, presumably seeing it live on television, he was "certain that the airplane crashes were terrorist activities," he has recalled. But he still did not order that Cheney be taken to a secure location. Instead, he conferred with the supervisor who was with him, and the two men discussed "emergency contingency plans and a heightened security alert."

Then at "approximately 9:30 a.m."--more than 25 minutes after the second attack--Scott went to the West Wing to meet with Cheney's shift agents who were posted there. But he did not instruct them to evacuate the vice president. Instead, he recalled, he "discussed the heightened alert and reviewed the contingency plan" with them. He then remained near Cheney's office door.

Scott has said he only took action to get Cheney to a safe location when he learned a suspicious aircraft was flying toward Washington. [42] This was presumably shortly after 9:33 a.m., when the Secret Service was first informed about the aircraft.

Even after it was alerted to the aircraft, there was a delay before the Secret Service took action. At 9:33 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report, a supervisor at Reagan National Airport in Washington called the Joint Operations Center at the White House and said, "An aircraft [is] coming at you and not talking with us." The Secret Service officer who answered the call--apparently Gregory LaDow--recalled that, after he was told about the aircraft, he was "about to push the alert button." However, he said, the supervisor then told him "that the aircraft was turning south and approaching Reagan National Airport," instead of continuing toward the White House. Therefore, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, "No move was made to evacuate the vice president at this time."

Action was finally taken after the Secret Service learned the plane was beginning to circle back. [43] Scott heard the "broadcast alert" from the Joint Operations Center over his radio, stating, "Unidentified aircraft coming toward the White House." [44] Some or perhaps all of Cheney's agents then went into the vice president's office, to move Cheney to the PEOC. The Secret Service ordered the evacuation of Cheney "just before 9:36," according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [45] The agents hurried Cheney down the hallway, past the Oval Office, and down to the basement of the White House. [46]

If this account, according to which the Secret Service moved Cheney from his office to take him to a secure location at around 9:35 a.m., is correct, the implications are serious. It would mean Cheney's agents did nothing to protect the vice president--the man who would have been running the country if the president was killed or incapacitated--for over 45 minutes after the first attack and over 30 minutes after the second. Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman commented on their slow response, writing that after they left the vice president's office, Cheney and his agents "were racing a jet aircraft on foot." Therefore, Gellman noted, "If the White House had been the target, Cheney would have lost the race." [47]

Cheney and his agents reached the safety of the underground tunnel leading to the PEOC about a minute after they left Cheney's office. Cheney then used a phone in the tunnel to talk with President Bush, who was by then on Air Force One, ready to fly out of Sarasota, Florida. Cheney finally entered the PEOC at around 9:58 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [48]

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER WAS ONLY TAKEN TO A SECURE LOCATION AFTER THE PENTAGON ATTACKAnother key government official whose experiences on September 11 highlight the slow responses of the Secret Service was Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. Rice was in the White House at the time of the attacks on the U.S. [49]

Although she was not one of the Secret Service's designated protectees at that time, immediately after the attacks on the WTC, the Secret Service apparently considered itself responsible for her safety: At the 9:18 a.m. meeting during which Carl Truscott and three other senior Secret Service agents discussed security at the White House, one item covered, according to Truscott, was "providing protection for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice." However, as was the case for Lynne Cheney and also, according to some accounts, Dick Cheney, the Secret Service only moved Rice to a secure location after it learned about the unidentified aircraft flying toward the White House.

Rice was escorted from the White House Situation Room to the PEOC by Truscott. Truscott learned about the suspicious aircraft heading toward the White House during his 9:18 a.m. meeting, when, as previously mentioned, Danny Spriggs phoned him and alerted him to it. He subsequently left his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and headed toward the PEOC.

On the way there, Truscott stopped off at the Situation Room. [50] There, he told Rice she had to go to the PEOC. This appears to have been at around 9:45 a.m., as Rice has recalled that at the time, she had just been watching the first coverage of the Pentagon attack on TV. [51] (The Pentagon attack was first reported on CNN at 9:42 a.m. [52]) Rice called President Bush and spoke with him before Truscott escorted her out of the Situation Room. [53] Rice and Truscott then joined Dick and Lynne Cheney in the underground tunnel leading to the PEOC, and Rice entered the PEOC shortly before 10:00 a.m. [54]

But if the Secret Service considered itself responsible for protecting Rice that morning, the question arises as to why it waited so long before it moved her to a secure location. Surely, for her safety, Rice should have been taken to the PEOC immediately after the second plane hit the WTC, if not before then. Agents should have known, once they realized the U.S. was under attack, that Rice could have been killed or seriously injured if the White House was targeted. And yet the national security adviser only reached the safety of the PEOC about 55 minutes after the second attack took place.

ARMED AGENTS ORDERED PEOPLE TO RUN AWAY FROM THE WHITE HOUSEThe oddness of the Secret Service's sluggish initial response to the 9/11 attacks becomes more apparent when we compare it with the urgency and professionalism agents suddenly exhibited after around 9:35 a.m. or 9:45 a.m. on September 11. After that time, they reacted in a manner we might reasonably expect them to in such a crisis.

The new level of urgency was evident when Secret Service agents ordered people to evacuate the White House, at around 9:45 a.m. CNN's John King reported that, after that time, the people he saw leaving the White House grounds "were told and ordered by the Secret Service to run." [55] Major Robert Darling of the White House Military Office, who was also at the scene, described seeing the White House in "full evacuation mode." "I was struck by the number of uniformed and plainclothes Secret Service agents with automatic weapons drawn," he commented, "yelling over megaphones, 'Ladies, take off your heels and run for the exits; there's another plane inbound.'" Darling also noticed "grim-faced Secret Service agents" who were "taking up positions in and around the White House." [56]

Secret Service agents acted with the same urgency as they ordered people to leave the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, at that time. Ron Christie, the deputy assistant to the vice president for domestic policy, described the scene on the second floor of the building, writing: "The offices containing the vice president's Secret Service detail were flung open. Men and women I'd never seen before ran out with automatic weapons. They began to shout: 'Everybody evacuate the building. Get out now!'" [57] The New York Times described bomb squads "racing through the upper floors of the Old Executive Office Building, screaming, 'Get out, get out, this is real!'" [58]

The increased concern of the Secret Service meant people were refused entry to the White House grounds. After he was evacuated from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, David Addington, Dick Cheney's general counsel and legal adviser, tried to re-enter the White House complex but was denied access. A Secret Service agent told him no one was being allowed in. Addington then "tried several other entrances," but "without success," according to journalist and author Stephen Hayes. [59]

Lynne Cheney and her Secret Service agents experienced a similar response when they arrived at the White House as it was being evacuated. A guard refused to let their car into the White House grounds. [60] The guard "didn't know who I was," Cheney wrote. [61] "The security people at the White House were stunned that somebody would want to come in," she recalled, "and so made quite an effort to keep us out." Cheney's driver took the car over the curb and onto the sidewalk, to try and get into the grounds, but a fire engine was driven in front of the car to block its way. Eventually, though, Cheney and her agents were admitted in. [62]

AGENTS SHOWED INCREASED CONCERN FOR THE SAFETY OF THEIR PROTECTEESThe sudden change in the attitude of the Secret Service was reflected in the way agents treated the people they were protecting.

If the accounts stating that Dick Cheney was evacuated from his office at around 9:35 a.m. are correct, then there was a dramatic contrast between the vice president's Secret Service agents' lack of response to the two crashes at the WTC, and their rapid and determined actions after they learned an unidentified plane was flying toward the White House.

Even after the second plane crashed, Cheney was allowed to stay in his office and meet with several other government officials. He then spent "several minutes watching developments on the television," he has recalled, and was starting "to get organized to figure out what to do." [63] But at around 9:35 a.m., according to Barton Gellman, "Four or five Secret Service agents arrived, submachine guns in hand." One of them, James Scott, pushed through the group of officials around Cheney and told the vice president, "Sir, we need to move you--now." Cheney nodded, indicating he would respond in a moment. But Scott "brought down the flat of his hand--loud--on Cheney's desk," according to Gellman, and commanded, "Now!" [64] Cheney recalled that Scott then "grabbed [me], put a hand on my belt, another hand on my shoulder, and propelled me out the door of my office." [65]

A similar change was evident in the behavior of Lynne Cheney's Secret Service agents after they were alerted to the aircraft flying toward the White House. Whereas they previously allowed the vice president's wife to continue with her appointment at the hair salon, Lynne Cheney has recalled that the agents now moved her "rather briskly into a car," drove her "at rather high speed toward the vice president's house," and then "made a rather dramatic U-turn in the middle of the street and headed toward the White House." [66]

And while she had been allowed to stay in a non-secure location after the planes hit the WTC, Condoleezza Rice was treated with a new level of urgency at around 9:45 a.m., when Carl Truscott took her to the PEOC. Rice has recalled that when she phoned the president before going to the PEOC, the call had to be "brief" because she was "being pushed to get off the phone and get out of the West Wing." [67] Truscott, she said, was "pulling at my arm, saying, 'You have to go to the bunker.'" [68] Then, as she headed to the PEOC, she was "pushed along" the corridors by Truscott. [69]

In all three accounts--of Dick and Lynne Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice--we see that Secret Service agents did eventually respond to the 9/11 attacks in a way we might reasonably expect from such highly skilled professionals in an emergency. But why did they fail to respond that way after the second plane hit the WTC at 9:03 a.m., when, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, "nearly everyone in the White House ... immediately knew it was not an accident?" [70]

THE SECRET SERVICE WAS PREPARED FOR GROUND ATTACKSAlthough the call it received at 9:33 a.m. about a suspicious aircraft flying toward the White House was "the first specific report to the Secret Service of a direct threat to the White House," according to the 9/11 Commission Report, how could the Secret Service have known, when it first became aware of the attacks in New York, that Washington or the White House would not also be attacked? A hijacked aircraft could have been flying toward Washington without its knowledge. Or terrorists could have attacked from the ground: A group brandishing firearms could have gone on a rampage in the capital, or a bomb, chemical weapon, or biological weapon could have been set off. The Secret Service should surely have anticipated these possibilities as soon as it realized or suspected the U.S. was under attack.

Secret Service agents apparently would have been prepared for these kinds of attacks: The Washington Post reported, "Of the more than 201 federal planning exercises conducted in the late 1990s, two-thirds were aimed at defending the public against biological and chemical attacks." [71]

Dick Cheney's Secret Service agents indeed seemed to recognize the possibility of a ground attack on the White House when they moved the vice president down toward the PEOC. Cheney recalled that they "positioned themselves at the top, middle, and bottom of the staircase, creating layers of defense in case the White House itself should be invaded." James Scott gave Cheney's other agents extra firearms and gas masks, presumably in case there was a chemical or biological attack on the White House. [72] But why did these agents wait so long before reacting with this high level of urgency and professionalism?

THE WHITE HOUSE WAS CONSIDERED A POSSIBLE TERRORIST TARGETThe slowness of the Secret Service in protecting the White House on September 11 seems particularly odd in light of the fact that the agency considered the place a possible target for terrorists and had been concerned that it might be attacked from the air.

Paul O'Neill revealed in May 2001 that the Secret Service held "interagency tabletop exercises in preparation for terrorist attacks on the White House." [73] And after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, when there were concerns about the games being attacked using an aircraft, the Secret Service "continued to work on the problem of airborne threats to the Washington region," according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [74] Additionally, Marlin Fitzwater, the press secretary to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, said in 1994 that "aerial attacks" were "the ultimate fear for security people." [75]

The Secret Service's concerns would surely have been heightened because of an incident in 1994--actually on the night of September 11 that year--when a man stole a small propeller plane from an airport in Maryland and then crashed it into the wall of the White House. Time magazine commented, "The unlikely incident confirmed all too publicly what security officials have long feared in private: the White House is vulnerable to sneak attack from the air." [76]

Between 1998 and 2001, the Secret Service even held training exercises to test security at the White House, which involved computer simulations of planes crashing into the building. [77]

THE SECRET SERVICE HAD COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS ON SEPTEMBER 11While a proper investigation is required to determine why the Secret Service performed so poorly in protecting the White House and some of the people it was responsible for on September 11, we can at least speculate as to some factors that may have been involved.

There is already some evidence suggesting the Secret Service's lines of communication were sabotaged on September 11, thereby hindering the agency's ability to respond to the terrorist attacks. The sabotage may have involved phones being jammed, or rogue employees deliberately failing to pass on information or failing to pass on information quickly enough.

For example, Nelson Garabito, a senior Secret Service agent who was responsible for coordinating the president's movements, phoned his counterpart at the Federal Aviation Administration promptly after the second attack on the WTC, and was told there were two planes that were unaccounted for and possibly hijacked in addition to the two that had hit the WTC. Garabito instructed someone with him to go upstairs and pass this information on to other Secret Service agents. But, for unknown reasons, the information was not passed on, or was passed on but not disseminated. It "failed to reach agents assigned to the vice president, and the vice president was not evacuated at that time," the 9/11 Commission Report stated. [78]

And Danny Spriggs said that when he arrived at the Director's Crisis Center at Secret Service headquarters at around 9:35 a.m., "many of the telephones" in the center were "not operational." However, it is unclear if he meant the phones were not working or were simply not yet being used. [79]

AGENTS WERE HINDERED BY 'CONFLICTING' AND 'UNCONFIRMED' INFORMATIONFurther evidence that the Secret Service was affected by communication problems on September 11 was its lack of awareness of what was going on that day.

Laura Bush, the wife of President Bush, spent much of September 11 at Secret Service headquarters and has described the lack of information available to people there. "All of us in that basement conference room [at Secret Service headquarters] and many more in the Secret Service building were relying on rumors and on whatever news came from the announcers on television," she wrote. [80]

Danny Spriggs also described the lack of awareness of what was happening among those at Secret Service headquarters. He said the amount of information that came into the Director's Crisis Center throughout the day was "enormous." However, agents in the center were receiving "conflicting" information from the Secret Service's intelligence division, "unconfirmed data," and "raw information," which hindered their ability to make proper decisions. Spriggs recalled that one of his colleagues was making decisions based on "inaccurate data that could have been quickly verified." [81]

Confusion within the Secret Service was also indicated by the behavior of a senior agent who met Lynne Cheney when she arrived at the White House and escorted her through the building. Inside the White House, Cheney and the agent ran into I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, who was making his way to the PEOC.

Libby has recalled that the Secret Service agent appeared to be "a little confused" about where he should take Cheney. The agent, according to Libby, "had the impression that she was supposed to be in the mess area"--the cafeteria on the ground floor of the West Wing, which was much less secure than the underground PEOC.

Libby told the Secret Service agent, "I think we're--Mrs. Cheney and I--are supposed to be in the PEOC." But the agent, who was wearing an earpiece that Libby thought "he was getting some instructions off," believed they were "supposed to be somewhere else." Eventually, after "probably a minute or so," according to Libby, the agent received "the proper instruction" over his earpiece. Cheney, the agent, and Libby then headed toward the PEOC. [82]

WAS THE SECRET SERVICE HOLDING A TRAINING EXERCISE ON SEPTEMBER 11?Another possible reason for the Secret Service's poor response to the terrorist attacks is that the agency was running a training exercise, maybe based around a scenario resembling the actual attacks that day. As previously mentioned, around that time, the Secret Service had been conducting "interagency tabletop exercises in preparation for terrorist attacks on the White House." [83] One of these exercises could have been scheduled for the morning of September 11, and could have been used to deceive and confuse agents. Some agents may have been unclear as to what was real and what was simulated, and could have mistaken actual events for part of the exercise.

While we can currently speculate, the actual reasons for the Secret Service's initial lack of response to the 9/11 attacks are still unknown. The amount of evidence publicly available about the Secret Service's actions on September 11 is, unfortunately, very small. A lot more relevant information therefore needs to come to light. And the actions of the Secret Service need to be a key area of consideration in any new investigations of the 9/11 attacks.

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

The Agency, a major CBS drama series about the CIA that began being broadcast in late September 2001, featured storylines with remarkable similarities to the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax attacks that occurred in the U.S. shortly after them. One of the show's executive producers said the parallels were so apparent that "people are asking me, 'Are we showing the bad guys our script?'" because "it seems like they're kind of following, in some ways, things that we're doing." [1] Significantly, these storylines were written before September 11, and the show was made with extensive assistance from the CIA. Some of the show's storylines, including those resembling 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, were actually suggested to one of the writers by the CIA. [2]

News reports around the time The Agency was broadcast noted the similarity between the show's storylines and the horrifying events that had taken place in the U.S. No one suggested, however, that this similarity might have been the result of people having foreknowledge of the terrorist attacks that hit America in late 2001. But surely we need to look closer and consider whether some individuals, perhaps employees of the CIA, did indeed know about these attacks in advance and, for as yet unknown reasons, wanted episodes of The Agency to depict events similar to what was going to happen.

SERIES WAS MADE WITH EXTENSIVE CIA ASSISTANCEThe Agency was a prime-time TV series that told stories of life inside the CIA and showed agents tackling problems of national security. [3] The villains they faced included Arab terrorists, Colombian drug dealers, and Iraqis.

The show featured well-known actors such as Gil Bellows, Will Patton, Ronny Cox, and Gloria Reuben. [4] Its principal executive producer was Wolfgang Petersen, who directed blockbuster movies including Air Force One and In the Line of Fire. [5]

The CIA provided substantial support for The Agency. It vetted scripts and allowed its employees to be used as extras. The Agency was also the first television program permitted to film inside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. [6] There was even going to be a "big red carpet premiere" of the show's pilot episode at CIA headquarters the week before it aired on TV, on September 18, but the event was canceled because the CIA was busy responding to the 9/11 attacks. [7]

UNUSED SCRIPT FEATURED PLANE HIJACKINGSThree storylines written for The Agency are particularly notable. Two of these were made into episodes but one was never used.

The storyline that was not used bore a striking resemblance to the events of September 11, when, according to the official story, Osama bin Laden had four U.S. aircraft hijacked. Michael Frost Beckner, the creator of The Agency, revealed to Variety magazine that four months before 9/11, he wrote an episode "in which bin Laden had three U.S. planes hijacked." The script, though, "was never completed." [8] An episode of The Agency based on this plot could plausibly have been produced between May 2001, when the script was written, and September 11, when it would have become unusable. But Beckner has not said why such an episode was never made.

Beckner has revealed, however, that some storylines for The Agency were suggested to him by Chase Brandon, the CIA's entertainment liaison officer (who happens to be a cousin of Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones). [9] But Beckner has not said whether Brandon suggested to him the storyline about bin Laden having three American aircraft hijacked.

PILOT EPISODE FEATURED A '9/11-TYPE EVENT' IN ENGLANDThe pilot episode of The Agency also had similarities to what happened on September 11. David Clennon, one of the show's stars, commented that the episode was "spooky" in that it anticipated "a 9/11-type event, only taking place in London." [10] The storyline, according to Beckner, who wrote the episode, "was based on the premise that bin Laden attacks the West and a war on terrorism invigorates the CIA." [11] Osama bin Laden's name is mentioned twice in the episode. [12] Author Tricia Jenkins commented that the timing of the pilot episode was also "eerie," as the episode was originally scheduled to air "just two weeks after 9/11," on September 27, 2001. [13]

In the episode, it is revealed that the CIA has identified al-Qaeda as a threat, and has discovered that the terrorist group is planning to carry out a major attack in Europe. A CIA officer who infiltrated the group is able to provide the agency with the date of the planned attack, but this is only three days away. Agents then learn that the terrorists intend to bomb the Harrods department store in London, England--a target that one character describes as "an international symbol of consumerism." The CIA shares what it has learned with British intelligence officers and helps to avert the attack at the last minute. [14]

As well as noting "the eerie coincidence of an attack on a 'symbol of capitalism,'" Newsday pointed out that the episode "inadvertently anticipated debates in the aftermath of the [9/11] attacks about how harsh and indiscriminate our response to the terrorists should be, and what more, if anything, our intelligence operatives should be empowered to do in the way of preventive defense. It also anticipated, at least allusively, the response of CIA champions ... who've said that our spies failed to detect the [9/11] attacks because their hands have been tied by civil libertarians who care more about being 'good guys' than winning." [15]

The broadcast of the pilot episode on September 27 was canceled in response to the 9/11 attacks, with another episode of The Agency replacing it. [16] Gail Katz, one of the show's executive producers, commented around that time: "Our show seems to be too close to what's in the headlines. Too close, in fact, that ... it's not appropriate for viewing." The pilot episode finally went out on November 1, with all references to Osama bin Laden removed. [17]

STORYLINE OF PILOT EPISODE CAME FROM THE CIARegarding the similarity between storylines of The Agency and real-world events, Bill Harlow, the CIA's chief spokesman, said there was "no magic" involved in the show's apparent ability "to predict the headlines." He claimed that "The Agency simply got lucky that the headlines intersected with its storylines so neatly." However, Beckner revealed that the plot of the pilot episode was one of several storylines suggested to him by Chase Brandon, the CIA's entertainment liaison officer. What this means, Tricia Jenkins has noted, is that it "originated from the CIA." [18]

Beckner said he wrote the episode "over a year before 9/11," presumably meaning around summer 2000. [19] He worked with Brandon to develop the script, and sent early drafts to Brandon. [20] "I made some comments and he made some changes," Brandon has said. [21]

Beckner also said the similarity between the storyline of the pilot episode of The Agency and what happened on September 11 was because, during his career as a writer, he had done "a lot of back and forth with the CIA," and, he said, "The CIA would let in anyone, including a little writer like me, to hear that al-Qaeda and bin Laden are going to attack us." [22]

CBS 'HAD NO IDEA' ABOUT BIN LADEN BEFORE 9/11When we consider the two storylines for The Agency described above--that of the pilot episode and the unused plot about three American aircraft being hijacked--it is worth noting that, before September 11, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were unusual choices as villains for a major television series, since they only became well known among the public after 9/11.

Beckner in fact recalled that when he first presented his script for the pilot episode to CBS, the network "had no idea about bin Laden or al-Qaeda." On another occasion before September 11, CBS told Beckner: "This al-Qaeda thing, you've got to get off that. No one is interested. Trust us." [23] In light of the general lack of awareness of al-Qaeda at the time, therefore, it would be surprising if it was simply a coincidence that, before 9/11, Beckner was already writing storylines about attacks committed by bin Laden and his terrorist group.

EPISODE FEATURED PLANNED ANTHRAX ATTACK IN THE U.S.While two of The Agency's storylines had similarities to what happened on September 11, another storyline is notable because it involved a planned terrorist attack in the U.S. using anthrax, and because, at the time the episode with this storyline was originally going to be broadcast, the U.S. was actually in the middle of a series of anthrax attacks.

The episode, titled "A Slight Case of Anthrax," featured a German terrorist who had obtained the type of anthrax that the U.S. developed and sold to Iraq when it was an ally. The terrorist has already committed an attack in Belgium using the anthrax. The CIA discovers his identity and finds that he intends to carry out his next attack in Washington, DC, using a crop duster plane to spray the deadly disease. CIA agents then hurry to stop the man in his tracks. [24]

Originally, al-Qaeda was going to be behind the fictitious anthrax attacks. But after CBS objected, the storyline was changed so that it involved "Iraqis making an anthrax attack through German terrorist proxies." [25]

The episode, filmed in August 2001, was set to be broadcast on October 11, 2001, but had to be rescheduled because President Bush decided to hold a news conference that evening. It was then set to air on October 18, but was canceled because it was deemed inappropriate in light of the real-world anthrax attacks talking place. At that time, anthrax had been discovered in three states and the District of Columbia; at least 13 people either had the disease or had been exposed to its spores, and one person had died. [26] The episode finally aired on November 8. [27]

Significantly, Michael Frost Beckner, who wrote "A Slight Case of Anthrax," revealed that the episode's storyline was another one of the plots suggested to him by Chase Brandon. This means that the storyline originated with the CIA. [28]

Considering that storylines written for The Agency appear to have predicted terrorist attacks that took place in the U.S., it is worth noting that the CIA's cooperation with the show included reviewing scripts. The CIA would presumably therefore have seen the scripts for "A Slight Case of Anthrax" and the pilot episode before the episodes were filmed. It would certainly be worth discovering how the agency responded to these scripts. Whether the CIA also saw the script about Osama bin Laden having three American aircraft hijacked, and, if so, how it responded, is unknown.

SERIES WAS 'TIMELY' BECAUSE THE PUBLIC NEEDED 'A SENSE OF REASSURANCE'The fact that a major TV series with storylines about terrorists and the CIA's efforts to tackle them was ready to air within weeks of 9/11, when terrorism suddenly became a major concern, seems a remarkable coincidence.

When members of the press were shown the pilot episode of The Agency before September 11, their "big question," according to Michael Frost Beckner, was, "Who would want to make a television series about the CIA?" [29] At that time, according to Tricia Jenkins, "the CIA was suffering from attrition, Congressional attacks, and a lack of strong public support." But, as Jenkins noted, The Agency subsequently turned out to be particularly "timely ... both in terms of the show's ripped-from-the-headlines plotlines and the CIA's need to deflect the sharp criticisms aimed at the organization in the immediate aftermath of 9/11." [30]

Shortly after September 11, Chase Brandon similarly commented that "a show like The Agency couldn't be more timely." This, he said, was because, "Right now, the American public needs a sense of reassurance." [31] Indeed, CBS ran promos for the show in which the voiceover stated, "Now, more than ever, America needs the unsung heroes of The Agency." [32] Brandon added that as a result of the 9/11 attacks, "Our whole national consciousness is going to change, and I think a responsible film or TV episode about the agency, even one that weaves elements of terrorism into the storyline, can show the magnitude of what's at stake." [33]

A question to consider is whether it was just a coincidence that The Agency was ready to be broadcast just after September 11, when the American public needed to learn "the magnitude of what's at stake" and get "a sense of reassurance." Or could the show's timing have come about because some people in positions that enabled them to influence what programs a TV network produced had foreknowledge of 9/11 and the "war on terror" it would initiate? They therefore wanted programs made that would immediately be ready to fit in with the new reality that would emerge after September 11.

STORYLINES INDICATE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF TERRORIST ATTACKSLikewise, could the resemblance of some of The Agency's storylines to 9/11 and the anthrax attacks in the U.S. have been the result of people having foreknowledge of these events?

CNN suggested that the similarity was because the producers and writers of The Agency "read intelligence manuals, pull from actual CIA cases, and confer at length with the show's consultant, retired [CIA] operative Bazzel Baz." [34] However, Michael Frost Beckner revealed that these storylines were suggested to him by the CIA, via its entertainment liaison officer. This surely indicates that some people at the CIA had foreknowledge of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks.

This issue should clearly be examined as part of a new investigation of 9/11. That investigation would need to find out what was known, and who knew it.

Thursday, 16 May 2013

"It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents
everything America is about. And to bring those two
buildings down would bring America to its knees."

- Line from Nosebleed, a movie originally set to start being
filmed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

A significant number of movies and television dramas were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which had storylines with some remarkable similarities to the events of September 11, 2001. These storylines featured incidents such as terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft, and terrorists causing a jumbo jet to crash in New York.

The movies and TV shows would have featured some famous actors, and were being made for major companies, such as CBS and 20th Century Fox. Furthermore, employees of the military and other U.S. government agencies are known to have assisted in developing the storylines of some of these productions. Unsurprisingly, after September 11, the movies and TV shows were either canceled or significantly rewritten so as to remove any resemblance to the 9/11 attacks.

The existence of these movies and TV dramas, at the very least, disproves claims that the 9/11 attacks could not have been foreseen. It is worth considering, however, whether these productions served a more sinister purpose in relation to 9/11, albeit unknown to most of the people working on them.

This article examines seven movies and television dramas that were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which all had notable similarities to aspects of what happened on September 11. These proposed movies and TV shows received some attention after September 11 because of their resemblance to the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Newsweek even commented that the amount of movies and TV shows about terrorism being made at that time "makes you wonder if this [i.e. terrorism] wasn't an obsessive theme in the culture even before September 11." [1] However, no one suggested that there might have been a more sinister reason for there being so many productions about terrorism. Instead, their existence was treated like a simple coincidence.

ACTION MOVIE FEATURED TERRORIST PLOT TO BLOW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTERA number of movies and TV shows that were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks are notable because they featured acts of terrorism in New York or, specifically, at the World Trade Center.

A movie that is particularly striking is Nosebleed, which would have been about a terrorist plot to bomb the Twin Towers. [2] It was going to feature the well-known martial artist and actor Jackie Chan as a window washer at the World Trade Center who uncovers the plot and tries to thwart the terrorists. [3]

The script for Nosebleed was initially written in 1999 by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, and developed after that. Zicherman and Metzner had also come up with the film's storyline. [4]

A line reportedly in the script indicates that the fictitious terrorists intended to cause the Twin Towers to collapse--like what actually happened on September 11. A terrorist would say of the WTC: "It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America is about. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees." [5]

Nosebleed would have been a major film. It would have cost $50 million to $60 million to make, according to Variety magazine. [6] In May 2000, it was reported that Renny Harlin, who previously directed action movies such as Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight, was in talks to direct it, although whether he was subsequently taken on as director is unclear. [7]

FILMING WAS SET TO TAKE PLACE AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ON SEPTEMBER 11Not only did the plot of Nosebleed have similarities to the 9/11 attacks, but a scene for the movie was scheduled to be filmed at the top of one of the Twin Towers at 7:00 a.m. on September 11. [8] The filming would have taken place at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North Tower, according to Jackie Chan, but it was canceled. So instead of being at the WTC, Chan was in Toronto working on another movie, The Tuxedo, on September 11. [9]

Had the filming gone ahead as originally scheduled, Chan and the other people involved would likely have died, since everyone who was in Windows on the World when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. on September 11 was trapped and subsequently died. [10] Chan told one newspaper, "I would probably have died if the shooting went ahead as planned." [11] He said that on September 11, after he learned about the attacks on the WTC, he was "like a walking dead man" for the rest of the day. [12]

It is unclear why the filming at the WTC was canceled. According to some reports, it was because the script for the scene there was late. [13] According to the Orlando Sentinel, it was because Chan "didn't want to make Nosebleed without a finished script." "The action was good, but, somehow, the script not ready," he commented. [14] But Chan gave a different explanation to the Boston Phoenix, saying: "The studio didn't really like the script of Nosebleed because it was not perfect yet. So my manager said: 'Don't worry. If you do not like this film, we can do Tuxedo. You will meet with [Steven] Spielberg to see if you like it or not.' Then I met with Spielberg and I say I will do Tuxedo, because I trust Spielberg." [15]

Unsurprisingly, work on Nosebleed was put on hold after 9/11 and the movie has never been made. [16]

COMEDY MOVIE WOULD HAVE INCLUDED 'A BIG WORLD TRADE CENTER SCENE WITH TERRORISTS'Another movie was, like Nosebleed, notable because--as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described--its plot featured "New York, the World Trade Center, and terrorists." [17] Till Death Do Us Part would have been a comedy starring the well-known actors Billy Crystal and Michael Douglas. Its storyline, according to Newsday, was "about two fathers, soon to be related by their children's marriage," who have to take on "a terrorist bent on creating havoc in New York City." The movie would have included "a significant scene that was to take place at the Windows on the World restaurant" at the top of the North Tower. [18] It featured "a big World Trade Center scene with terrorists," according to Crystal, who added, "Funny, but the whole story was about that." [19]

Till Death Do Us Part was being made by Warner Brothers and Franchise Pictures, and was written in 2000 by Nat Mauldin, whose previous work included writing Dr. Dolittle, the 1998 comedy starring Eddie Murphy. [20] Filming was set to begin on November 17, 2001. [21] The movie was put on hold after September 11, but it was subsequently rewritten and was released in May 2003, renamed The In-Laws and with Crystal no longer starring in it. [22]

NBC PLANNED A DRAMA SERIES ABOUT AL-QAEDA ATTACKS IN NEW YORKA big-budget television drama was being developed at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which, like these movies, centered on terrorism in New York. NBC was working on a five-hour miniseries, called Terror, about a series of al-Qaeda attacks in the city. The show would have been a crossover between the network's three Law & Order series (the original show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and was going to be broadcast in May 2002. [23]

Terror would have followed an Osama bin Laden devotee who goes from an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan to New York. There, he detonates explosives in the subway under Times Square, killing over 1,000 New Yorkers. [24] Investigators then discover a terrorist release of anthrax, and the storyline would subsequently include the threat of a release of smallpox. [25]

Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order, put forward the idea for the show. When he was asked, early in 2001, if he had any suggestions for a miniseries, Wolf answered, "Terrorism in New York City." This, according to Los Angeles magazine, was a story he had "long wanted to do." When Wolf told Neal Baer, one of Law & Order's executive producers, about the miniseries, Baer said the show should specifically be about bioterrorism.

By June 2001, Wolf had written a 40-page outline for Terror. [26] By August, Wolf and his colleagues were "deeply involved in the story," according to Baer. [27] Filming was set to begin on September 24, less than two weeks after 9/11. [28]

On September 11, before the attacks took place in New York, Baer and some of his colleagues were at a facility only a couple of miles from the World Trade Center doing "preproduction planning" for the show. [29] Terror was canceled a week later, in light of the 9/11 attacks. [30]

WRITER AND MILITARY OFFICIALS CONSIDERED 9/11-STYLE SCENARIO FOR SERIES ABOUT TERRORIST ATTACK IN THE U.S.Other movies and television shows being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks stand out because their storylines featured terrorist events that resembled specific aspects of 9/11: an aircraft hijacking, a plane crash, and an attack in the U.S. that leads to a wider conflict, like the actual "war on terror."

One of these was a TV miniseries called World War III, which would have been about "how an act of terrorism on United States soil expanded into global conflict," according to the Dallas Observer. Bryce Zabel, a longtime television writer and producer, who was elected as chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in August 2001, was working on this show. He was scheduled to meet with executives at the cable channel USA Network on September 13, 2001, to present the details of his miniseries to them.

Zabel consulted the U.S. military while working on the storyline for World War III and apparently considered scenarios resembling the 9/11 attacks. He has recalled: "My partner and I had worked carefully with the Air Force and some Pentagon war planners to figure out the possible scenarios by which such a conflict [i.e. a world war] could come into being. The irony is that we had sort of rejected something as radical as what just happened [on September 11] as being a little too much."

Zabel has not said what kind of terrorist attack he eventually decided to incorporate into his storyline. But he noted a similarity between what his show envisioned and what happened on September 11, saying the 9/11 attacks meant that "the cautionary tale we hoped to tell in fiction ended up becoming a cautionary tale told on the evening news." [31]

Zabel's miniseries was canceled in response to the 9/11 attacks. But, possibly referring to the similarity between its storyline and the "global war on terrorism" that began after 9/11, Zabel said, two weeks after September 11, that World War III would have "reflected exactly what's going on in the world right now." [32]

PLANNED MOVIE FEATURED CYBER-TERRORISTS CAUSING A JUMBO JET TO CRASH IN NEW YORKOne movie that was in the pipeline on September 11, called WW3.com, would have involved cyber-terrorists causing a Boeing 767--the type of plane that hit the Twin Towers--to crash just a few miles from the World Trade Center.

Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox had been working on WW3.com since 1998. The movie, according to Variety, would have featured "a high-concept, special effects-laden storyline involving cyber-terrorists who have declared war on the United States." [33] It was written by David Marconi, who previously wrote Enemy of the State, a 1998 thriller starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

Marconi said his screenplay for WW3.com was "incredibly prescient about the events of September 11." He described the storyline as "a blueprint for disaster." Notably, the movie's climax would have featured a Boeing 767 crashing into a Simon and Garfunkel concert in New York's Central Park.

Marconi was assisted by experts from the National Security Agency (NSA) while he was working on the screenplay. He has recalled that these experts were "more than helpful in laying out situations not dissimilar from what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon" on September 11. On the day of 9/11, one of them even phoned Marconi and said to him: "Turn on the TV. It's happening." Marconi has not said whether the scenario of a 767 crashing into Central Park was suggested to him by someone at the NSA. [34]

In August 2000, it was reported that WW3.com would be produced by Luc Besson, the well-known French film writer, director, and producer. [35] The film was shelved after 9/11, but the script was rewritten and made into the fourth Die Hard movie, Live Free or Die Hard, which was released in 2007. [36]

'TOP-SECRET' MOVIE FEATURED A PLANE HIJACKING20th Century Fox also worked on Deadline, a movie that would have involved an aircraft hijacking. Few details are known about this film. It was, according to the Los Angeles Times, "in top-secret development" before September 11. All that has been reported of its storyline is that it featured terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft.

Deadline was reportedly being produced by James Cameron, the renowned director of movies such as Titanic and The Terminator. It was written by brothers Peter and David Griffiths, who also wrote Collateral Damage, a movie about terrorism starring Arnold Schwarzenegger that was released in 2002. [37]

Deadline was put on hold after 9/11. [38] It was revived in 2008, with the new name Nagasaki Deadline. At that time, Variety reported that the storyline "centered on an emotionally damaged FBI agent who must decipher historic events in a desperate race to avert a terrorist plot." It is unclear if this was the original storyline of the movie or if the plot was changed after September 11. [39] Five years later, the movie has still not been made.

TV MOVIE WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED THE INVESTIGATION OF A PLANE CRASH POSSIBLY CAUSED BY BIN LADENOne production is notable because, although it did not feature a terrorist attack, its storyline centered on the investigation of a plane crash, just as the 9/11 attacks led to the investigations of plane crashes. Furthermore, Osama bin Laden would have been mentioned in it.

Fall From the Sky was to have been a TV movie for CBS. Although being made for television rather than cinema, it had a large budget, of $7.2 million. [40] It was written by Nicholas Meyer--who previously wrote several of the Star Trek movies--and Brian Rehak, and would have starred Forest Whitaker, the award-winning actor of such movies as Bird and The Last King of Scotland.

Fall From the Sky would have told the story of the crash of a new type of passenger aircraft in which hundreds of people die, and the investigation that follows. Whitaker was to have played the National Transportation Safety Board official who leads the investigation. [41]

The storyline, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, looked at "the meticulous process of gathering scientific evidence after the tragedy." [42] It also "dealt a lot with the [Federal Aviation Administration] and issues of concealment," Whitaker said. [43] The TV movie, according to Meyer, would show "the political pressures brought to bear on the investigation." [44]

Furthermore, the storyline included investigators examining the theory that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the crash. [45] According to Meyer, it would transpire that terrorists were not to blame.

Filming was scheduled to begin in Winnipeg, Canada, around the start of October 2001 and the TV movie was in preproduction in September that year. [46] However, CBS canceled Fall From the Sky shortly after 9/11. [47]

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRYThe fact that these movies and television shows were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, at the very least, disproves official claims that no one could have predicted what happened on September 11. What we know of the storylines of these productions shows that some scriptwriters, and people working for government agencies who assisted them, did indeed envision scenarios resembling the 9/11 attacks. The storylines are also evidence that some individuals may have had foreknowledge of the attacks--a possibility that should certainly be investigated.

It is also plausible that these movies and TV shows served a more disturbing purpose. Might, for example, rogue individuals working for U.S. government agencies have used a particular film or television show as a cover, to help them prepare the 9/11 attacks?

When considering this possibility, it is worth noting that there has been a long history of collaboration between government agencies and the entertainment industry. Former CIA officer Robert Baer described this relationship, saying, "All these people that run [film] studios, they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board." [48]

Furthermore, government agencies have, for many years, employed entertainment liaison officers to influence the image of them portrayed in the media. The FBI set up an office in the 1930s to improve its image in movies, radio programs, and television shows. The Department of Defense established a similar office in 1947.

The CIA was the last major government agency to establish a formal relationship with the movie industry. It set up a basic entertainment program in the early 1990s and employed its first entertainment liaison officer in 1996. Other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service, similarly have motion picture and television offices or employ official assistants to the media. [49]

The CIA and the military have cooperated on numerous Hollywood productions. The Pentagon provided its "full cooperation" for movies such as Top Gun (1986), True Lies (1994), Air Force One (1997), Transformers (2007), and Iron Man (2008). [50] And the CIA helped shape such movies as Enemy of the State (1998), Bad Company (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and The Recruit (2003). [51]

THE CIA'S 'VERY ACTIVE' NETWORK IN HOLLYWOODAlthough it only employed its first liaison to the entertainment industry in 1996, the CIA has been working with Hollywood since the 1950s. [52] Jerry Naylor, a country singer and veteran of the entertainment business, revealed that he was first recruited by the agency in 1968, and subsequently "used his international fame as cover to work as a secret agent for the CIA" on more than 100 occasions. Naylor believes other celebrities must have similarly been employed by the agency. "I think using celebrities from Los Angeles and Hollywood for covert operations is probably something that the CIA liked to do," he said. "I doubt I was the only one." [53]

Furthermore, retired CIA intelligence officer Antonio Mendez (who was played by Ben Affleck in the movie Argo) wrote that when he was head of the agency's disguise section, between 1974 and 1979, he "engaged the services of many consultants in the entertainment industry." These included makeup artist John Chambers, who won an honorary Academy Award for his work on the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. [54]

John Rizzo, a senior CIA lawyer, stated in 2007 that the CIA has "a very active" network of people in Hollywood, helping "in whatever way they can to give back." [55]

WHAT PURPOSE MIGHT 9/11-STYLE TV SHOWS AND MOVIES HAVE SERVED?It is also worth noting that movies had, long before 2001, been used as a cover for covert operations, so if this tactic was utilized by those who planned 9/11, it would not have been the first time a movie served such a purpose. For example, from 1978 to 1982, Jerry Naylor worked on the research and production of a movie called The Bounty Hunter, which, Naylor has claimed, was a cover for monitoring terrorists in the Lebanon. [56]

A better known example of the tactic was the subject of the Oscar-winning movie Argo. On that occasion, the CIA helped rescue six American embassy workers who were trapped in Iran during the 1979 to 1981 hostage crisis by disguising them as a Canadian film crew that was supposedly scouting the country for shooting locations.

The team running the operation set up a fake production company called Studio Six Productions, with offices in a suite on the old Columbia Studio lot in Hollywood. The company soon announced its first supposed production--a science-fiction movie called Argo--and arranged for full-page adverts in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter to publicize it. Using the cover of the Hollywood production company and the movie, the CIA was then able to get the six embassy workers out of Iran.

Studio Six Productions appeared so convincing that by the time it closed, several weeks after the rescue, it had received 26 scripts, one of which was from Steven Spielberg. The Hollywood community only learned about the deception behind the company and its planned movie 17 years later, when the CIA decided to go public with the story. [57]

WERE 9/11-STYLE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS USED AS A COVER?Seeing how movies had previously been successfully used as a cover for covert operations, we can imagine how films and television shows with plots resembling the events of September 11 might have served as a cover for some of the preparations for the 9/11 attacks. For example, a person working on one of these productions could have used their position to obtain information that would otherwise have been unavailable to them and might have been beneficial for planning 9/11.

Jackie Chan has revealed how his involvement in the movie Nosebleed, about a terrorist plot to blow up the Twin Towers, enabled him to learn about the World Trade Center buildings. "We had visited the location before September 11," he said. "The producer. My manager. We had dinner upstairs. We were getting all kinds of information. I was going to play a window washer, so they were telling me things like how many windows the building had.'' [58] In his preparation for the movie, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Chan learned the "secrets" of the Twin Towers, such as "how air pressure was regulated with doors that might be useful as gags in one of his trademark fights," and "which sides of the buildings one could work on to avoid the wind." [59]

Considering the opportunities the movie thus provided, might Nosebleed have been used by someone who, while working on the film, was secretly involved in planning 9/11 and using their work on the movie as a cover, in order to find out information about the Twin Towers? This person might, for example, have been able to learn about security at the World Trade Center and the layout of the towers, which would have been useful information for anyone who wanted to plant explosives, so as to cause the buildings to collapse on September 11.

Since the movie Till Death Do Us Part, like Nosebleed, would have featured "New York, the World Trade Center, and terrorists," it seems plausible that a person involved in its production could similarly have used their position to obtain information about the WTC.

A production like the TV movie Fall From the Sky could have provided different opportunities for a person who was secretly helping to plan the 9/11 attacks. Since Fall From the Sky would have been about a National Transportation Safety Board official and the investigation of a plane crash, a person working on it might have been able to obtain information that would be useful for covering up the truth of what happened on September 11 in the aftermath of the attacks.

They might have learned what kinds of investigations would follow the plane crashes on September 11 and how the National Transportation Safety Board would respond. Such information could have helped the group planning 9/11 determine how to obstruct the investigations that would follow the attacks.

PRODUCTION TEAM LEARNED 'A LOT OF THINGS MOST PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW'The experiences of those who worked on NBC's miniseries Terror, about a series of al-Qaeda attacks in New York, illustrate the many opportunities a television show or movie about terrorism could create for someone who wanted to gather information on the subject.

Those working on Terror did a lot of research, particularly on bioterrorism, for the miniseries. They talked to "top law enforcement people on the state, federal, and local levels" about the subject, according to Dick Wolf. [60] Neil Baer talked to experts at the Rand Corporation think tank and hired a consultant from Stanford University in California. [61]

Those involved with the miniseries also consulted experts at the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia. At one point, Baer said, the FBI talked to them, because their "accumulation of so much information raised a red flag." Baer said that as a result of their research, "We knew a lot of things most people didn't know, because we spoke with so many experts all over the country." [62]

It is worth noting, however, that it would surely only require a small number of complicit individuals for a movie or television series to be used to help with planning the 9/11 attacks. In her book The CIA in Hollywood, Tricia Jenkins noted that when the CIA wants to influence a particular production, its involvement with that production is "shadowy and difficult to trace, especially since its interactions often take place only between two well-placed individuals, either in person or over the phone." [63]

If a movie or TV show was serving as a cover for those planning the 9/11 attacks, most people involved with it would therefore, presumably, have been unaware that they were being used by individuals with murderous intentions, and would have just thought they were working on a normal production.

9/11-STYLE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS NEED FURTHER INVESTIGATIONThe fact that numerous movies and television dramas with storylines resembling the events of September 11 were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks is surely something that requires closer examination, especially in light of the history of cooperation between government agencies and the entertainment industry. And yet, after receiving some attention in the aftermath of the attacks, these productions have been largely forgotten.

There are numerous questions that could be considered as part of a new investigation of 9/11. For example, which individuals came up with the scenarios resembling aspects of the 9/11 attacks for the storylines of these movies and TV shows? Some of the writers have said that scenarios similar to what happened on September 11 were suggested to them by employees of the NSA and the military. So who were those employees and what exactly did they suggest?

Investigators could presumably discover more details of the plots of the TV shows and movies, and obtain copies of the scripts. And it would surely be worth researching whether other productions with storylines resembling the 9/11 attacks were being worked on in September 2001.

Inquiries may well reveal a different story behind the terrorist attacks of September 11 than the official account we were led to believe.